As much as the whole riot thing was a disgrace, I had to laugh a bit because a car got flipped and burned during a homecoming street party at my university. And then led to massive police presence at future years’ events along with the media pumping up the possibility of another out of control party (one national paper even posted a map of ‘where to go to find the party’ in an online story).

So I like to claim we were trend setters in this. (and this university is in Ontario)

All his hits were in response to hits on Islanders.

The hit on Tangradi was after a hit on Hillen that helped cause his concussion
The hit on whats his name in Minnesota was a response to the hit on DiBenedetto

If Gillies was out there making runs on defenseless players for no reason, I’d want him gone too. But he knows his place with the team and his job, it’s protecting Islanders.

Not giving up on Haley. Play him on a line with Eager or Rupp. I don’t know why Eager has moved a few times, but if he’s a bad guy then I agree, don’t go there. As for Rupp, would you hate him if he played here? He’s played on winning teams. He’s better at taking a regular shift than Gillies, Konopka and a lot of other lugs you could get. Has played in this division and this area. Made about $850K last year and supposedly Pitt doesn’t think they can afford him. We’ve got plenty of cap space to do a reasonable deal.

But he is no heavyweight, there is no getting around that.

Or maybe he can leap over the first blue line, fly through the air over the rest of the rink and drop behind the unaware goalie for a Flying Stache of Incredulity.

I agree with 1, 2, and even 4(I do the same thing). But #3 is a non-existent thing. #3 with him defending teammates ends with a suspension, pointless heavyweight vs heavyweight fight where the player taking the beating had nothing to do with the incident, or a stupid penalty that likely does nothing to deter that stuff in the future “and” give the opposing team a powerplay/1-in-5 chance of putting a goal by us.

Don’t get me wrong. I love Gillies off the ice, think he’s a decent figurehead for kids and PR(aside from the suspension incidents), and root for him when he plays(even though useless most of the time due to his skills). But it just doesn’t outweigh how bad of a hockey player he is and how pointless he is on the ice 95%+ of the time. You how we say Konopka is a bad hockey player, Gillies is a lot worse then Konopka. Gillies hasn’t stopped a lot from happening this year, and has barely retaliated on a few incidents, going over board twice. I’ve wrote a little list(Tavares concussion, Comeau concussion, Tavares/Phaneuf, other ones too) that I could probably add to about things Gillies did nothing immediately about to
“defend” his team. Gillies is a figurehead, nothing more or less. When he “protects” us. he either puts us in a hole by taking a penalty, fights a heavyweight that has zero to do with us taking an illegal or cheap hit, or takes a suspension by going overboard. That’s what I wanted to say.

Does that mean he’d still get 90% of his salary? I didn’t know that.

That Martin was a liability last year…an if he doesn’t take a step forward, we’ll be having this conversation about him next year…just like we had about Sim, and Jackman, and Thompson, and etc.

Martin should be working on the skill aspects ofhis game, NOT be fighting heavyweights. He is not a heavyweight and he will never be a heavyweight.

Bodychecking the first car.